Monday, July 23, 2007

Marketing to Gamers: A Theory

Paul Tevis and I were "chattin' it up" today in an all anime catgirl chat room .... er... um...

moving on...

We were discussing Convention attendance and what sorts of games people play.

I asserted that people wanted episodic Buffy-style games, with little depth or planning. Most people wanted to minimize their exposure to new ideas, even though they wouldn't mind playing a NEW game. Dogs, for instance, might draw in players because of the theme or mechanics, but the game SHOULD and MUST adhere to a typical THREE ACT RPG session, lest people be confused. The villain must be clear cut and the decisions on who to kill and who to save be obvious.

Anything else might leave people wondering if they had a good time.

Paul contended that people want to have fun, but they don't want to risk have just a little fun for a game that is radically different from their "comfort zone." (I'm paraphrazing. Paul's a big kid. He can make his own assertions.)

Anyway.

Imagine the following scenario. GM lists FOUR games in a local convention catalog. Maybe his name is even listed next to the events. Doesn't matter. All of the descriptions are pulled directly from the backs of the rulebooks. All identical to the last time he ran games at the con. All with zero or little prep and most requiring the players to make characters when they sit down. It's not unrealistic and I know some good GMs that do this on a regular basis.

My opinion is three-fold.

One. I think people like rolling dice. It does not matter how compelling a story is. If they get to roll dice and take umbrage with GOOD and BAD die rolls (especially good), then they have "won something" somehow. This means that games with little-to-no die rolling may not be received as well as token, freeform, diceless, experimental, or "arbitrary" games [Mark Valiantos' Satanic Mills uses no dice and it's awesome.]

As an aside, every gamer knows the guy with the "worst die-luck ever." Yawn.

Two. I think gamers would rather be "pacified" with their entertainment, rather than risk something with a high good/bad ratio of fun. This extends to all nerds. Comic book fans. Anime fans. Check out Marvel comics or any robot anime. How many people just want a solid movie, rather than risk seeing something like Ghost Rider or Fantastic Four which has SUCK written all over it, but might have a gem. Okay. Bad example. How many people would watch an Anime named HIDE AND SEEK instead of an anime named GUNDAM 7000XYZ.

HIDE AND SEEK (to me) is the best anime I've ever seen. GUNDAM 7000XYZ is the same tired old crap GUNDAM always makes. But it's safe, because you know how it's going to end.

To use a gaming analogy, imagine an RPG session where the PCs have to kill an NPC, but they don't know which one is truly evil... everything is hearsay and conjecture. The game is no longer a morally BLACK/WHITE game with an obvious LICH adversary.

How unfulfilled would a gamer feel, knowing that his/her decision might have far-reaching and unpredictable implications?

That's HUGE.

Which brings me to my final point.

Three. I think people are very concerned about their own fun, but maybe not the fun of everyone they are playing with. They might even show up for selfish reasons. This is not an attack. Additionally, many people lacks the skills necessary to evaluate and explain why they love or hate something. They just do... and they form opinions quickly... that cannot be changed. D&D Sucks and that's the end of it. Mad Scientists ruin games. End of discussion. Charisma is a useless stat. Move on.

Game industry companies deal with this ALL THE TIME.

It's a fascinating phenomenon. I doubt Pepsi has this problem.

You have a consumer base that can form opinions without tests, without evaluation, and without education. I don't need to know how to write a story, but I can certainly evaluate that THIS ONE is stupid.

And it basically means you have to always be perfect, all the time. Or at the very least mediocre. You can't risk telling a new kind of story and you're unlikely to expand your threshold of acceptability. Mixing mediums is acceptable, so long as the story ends the same way a D&D game would. Otherwise your book on halfling druid machine monkey men not be taken as seriously as it should.

Anyway. This is not a slight against anyone. But it's slowly becoming a more important part of making/running/enjoying games with others that I find limits my exposure to big ideas or unconventional stories.

This is an unofficial observation/theory. No lab tests were done. No formal studies were conducted. No panels were developed to investigate how accurate these opinions might be in relation to the real thing.

3 comments:

Part of the problem, I feel, is that there is too much navel gazing going on in this industry. Everything looks the same, and plays the same, because it is safer to play with the familiar, and try something new.

Despite how many times people say gaming is all about the story. The truth of the matter is, gaming is about the game.

Metaplots are fine, but if the game does not allow you to play the game, right off the bat, then the game fails.

Most work under the assumption that the gamer will wait you out as you release your planned splat books to support a game line. By splitting up concepts into narrow focused books, the gamer looses interest. Games should be too the point.

In the end, I feel that it is not about tyring to be like movies, TV shows, or video games. It is about being a game.

That sums up a large % of the gaming population. It's always been that way... without much doubt it always will be that way. And thats ok, because what actually matters to this gamer is having a good time tossing dice with friends, and I dig that.

I'm not accusing you of passing judgement on this gamer, just maybe of undervaluing him. ;)

I wasn't even trying to undervalue him. I was trying to understand him, because frankly, I don't game the way he does.

And if I can point at enough people and say XYZ is a trend... even if it's a trend 70% of the time... it's enough information to say... hmm.... okay... more books that make gaming FASTER and FUNNER under these guidelines is good.

But, it's also a good jumping point for designing something new. For me, I can't gauge what people want based on one or two conversations. I want as many people yelling their opinions as possible... in a non-rpg.net sort of way.

About Me

Hi. jim pinto here. I'm a game designer (writer, editor, art director), but this has nothing to do with gaming…

I've written 20+ books (including the Largest Book in Roleplaying History, which is as important as being the guy who photocopied the Treaty of Versailles), seven comic books, three self-published works, a screenplay, a novella, lots of ads, and I presently contribute to severeal different blogs, while designing and writing on the side.